In the most recent episode of the CBS crime show Cold Case, supposedly devout Christian teenagers — all member of Hearts Wait, an abstinence club — were portrayed as sexually active. Also, the young people were shown stoning a member of their group who had joined their club shortly before her death. Supposedly the character was attacked so the group’s sins would remain secret.

The Culture and Media Institute (CMI), an arm of the Media Research Center, describes the episode as “a ham-handed attempt to influence this fall’s Congressional debate on abstinence education programs” by depicting abstinence-only education as “useless, if not actively harmful” — and “an exercise in bigoted, Christophobic fantasy.” Kristen Fyfe, a senior writer for CMI, says the program shows Hollywood has an agenda.

“Do I think that the producers deliberately put this story on to coincide with that debate? No. But definitely, part of the liberal agenda, part of Hollywood’s agenda, is all about sexualization of children,” says Fyfe. “And abstinence education, which is another context of this particular story, is not something they are on board with.”

In the opening scene of the episode, a high school “health” teacher is portrayed telling her class that school policy prevents her from telling them about various methods of birth control and how they work. CMI calls it one of several “gratuitous slaps at abstinence-only education,” and notes that Congress is currently debating funding for such programs.

According to Fyfe, the show is part of a larger trend across all forms of media. “Nobody who pays any attention to the media is surprised that Christians … constantly seem to be made the target of terrible story lines like this or attacks just flat-out painting them as bigoted or homophobic …,” she asserts. “Pick any slanderous epithet and it’s usually been lobbed at Christians.”

Fyfe points out that Hollywood would never portray Muslims in a negative light because of the current politically correct atmosphere in society.”